


Et Intrinsecus - Inwards

by tumbling_into_chaos



Series: Metanoia [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Beating Children, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Desperation, Drug Use, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied Abusive Marriage, Kid Fic, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki is in a dark place here, Loneliness, Lonely Loki (Marvel), Odin (Marvel)'s Bad Parenting, Sort Of, Thor (Marvel) (mentioned) - Freeform, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, anything else?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 20:02:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tumbling_into_chaos/pseuds/tumbling_into_chaos
Summary: "He sits on the roof of his parents house, the fabric of his jeans rough against his skin, the winds cold in his hair and on his face.He shivers, despite the hoodie, and despite the alcohol, making his skin flush and his eyes turn red.Thor is twenty-one today, and the house full of people who can't be bothered to remember Loki's face or name.[...]His grip on the pill bottle tightens."





	Et Intrinsecus - Inwards

**Author's Note:**

> If everything goes according to plan, I'll write seven more pieces to this, each focused on a different character.  
Currently I'm out of ideas, though, so we'll see about that.  
Anyways, hope you enjoy it.  
Thanks for reading - feedback is very appreciated.

_Loki, nineteen, four days later_

He sits on the roof of his parents house, the fabric of his jeans rough against his skin, the winds cold in his hair and on his face.  
He shivers, despite the hoodie, and despite the alcohol, making his skin flush andhis eyes turn red.  
He loosely holds a cigarette in his right hand, blows smoke into the night and watches it dance in the air, clouding the stars.  
His left hand is buried in the pocket of his jeans, clenched around a pill-bottle, cold to the touch.  
Somewhere to his right another bottle, this one made of glass, half filled with golden liquor. Below him flashing lights, the sounds of music.  
Thor is twenty-one today, and the house full of people who can't be bothered to remember Loki's face or name.  
Stark, Banner, Rogers, Romanoff. Maybe Barton does. Loki's grins. It's bitter.  
Volstagg, Fandral, Hogun. Sif was his friend before she was Thor's - The boy with the books and the girl without dresses.  
But Thor had shone brighter than pale little Loki; golden hair, golden smile, golden boy. Sif had been drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and Loki had burned his wings, and crashed to the ground, and that had been it.  
He is cold.  
The tips of his fingers are red, his knuckles blue.  
He takes another swing of whisky, breathes in, breathes out.  
His grip on the pill bottle tightens.

* * *

_Loki, thirteen_

It's Odin's birthday, early summer.  
The sun has set by now, and no one sees Loki grab a bottle out of his father's stack.  
His face his smeared with tears and snot, his lip is split and his bottom still hurts from the earlier beating.  
Sif doesn't talk to him anymore, Frigga doesn't smile, and Odin doesn't beat him, sometimes, when he had enough to drink.  
When he had enough to drink, Odin even laughs.  
Loki doesn't remember how to laugh, and maybe the alcohol will help.  
When he finally takes a swing, the beer is bitter and he almost spits it back out.  
He takes another sip instead.  
The taste makes him sick, but when the bottle is empty he grabs another one, and then a third. The fourth slips out of his grip.  
He hiccups, grins, falls to the ground.  
Glass shatters.  
Odin yells, somewhere behind him, but Loki doesn't understand him, barely feels the way rough hands grab his shoulders and pull him up.  
His eyes slip shut, his grin widens.  
He thinks he likes beer.

* * *

_Loki, fifteen_

He's charged extra, for the whisky.  
He's a kid; too small, too lanky, too beardless, voice too high. But they're willing to sell, and he's willing to pay.  
On Sunday mornings no one notices Loki, even paler, bags under his eyes bigger, steps still stumbling when he makes his way out of his parent's basement to wash off the stench of alcohol and piss, to get the vomit off his clothes and hair, dried after he spent the night laying in his own body fluids.  
They don't notice his narrowed eyes and hoarse voice, and the way he keeps stumbling over words.  
The headache is a constant anyway.

* * *

_Loki, sixteen_

He grins at the mirror.  
His teeth are bloody, his lip busted and his left eye will be swollen shut tomorrow, but the shock on his father's face had been worth the beating that followed.  
Gotcha, old man.  
He has another pack of cigarettes stuffed in his pillow, one Odin doesn't know about, and now he gets it out, lighter on his desk, and opens the window.  
The bitterness of the tabaco mingles with the taste of blood.  
Somewhere in the house, Odin is yelling and Frigga crying.  
A vase shatters, a door is slammed shut.  
Loki sits on the windowsill, looks at the moon, and inhales more slow poison.

* * *

_Loki, sixteen, two weeks later_

Frigga is crying again.  
Her arms are wrapped around Loki and she is holding him close like that will somehow protect him from Odin, or from the world, or anyone, really.  
Like she ever tried.  
But she never hit him. She never yelled.  
So Loki hugs her back, and says, “I promise”, and keeps that promise when he turns seventeen.  
The people who could have been his friends get high without him.

* * *

_Loki, nineteen_

“I told you it was a stupid idea to adopt the boy.”  
Odin is angry.  
Frigga is crying.  
Loki is staring.  
…  
“What?”

* * *

_Loki, nineteen, four days later_

He sits on the roof of his parents house, the fabric of his jeans rough against his skin, the winds cold in his hair and on his face.  
He shivers, despite the hoodie, and despite the alcohol, making his skin flush and his eyes turn red.  
Below him the music is too loud, the lights too colourful, the people too happy.  
It feels like cheating that they get to laugh and drink and have fun, when all he ever got was beatings; it feels like cheating that Thor gets to celebrate, and Loki gets yelled at.  
His hands are shaking.  
He takes another drag of the cigarette, but the tabaco is not bitter in comparison, and the smoke too pale, too much like his skin, so different from Thor's and Frigga's and Odin's.  
He bites back a sob, and drops the cigarette, still glowing.  
He gropes for the liquor bottle. It's too much like Thor, brown, or gold, or honey-coloured, like his smile, his insufferable shine, and with a choked scream Loki throws it off the roof. The glass shatters, cuts through the music.  
No tabaco, no alcohol, and why should he bother with his promise if the woman he gave it to lied to him all his life?  
His left hand clenches around the pill bottle, and it's shaking so hard now that he almost drops the pills as well.  
It takes him two, three, four tries to unscrew the lid, three, four, five to extract one pill.  
He stares at it, laying in his palm, clenches his hand to a fist, careful not to crumble the pill, hesitates, then shoves it in his mouth and swallows.

And then, Loki waits.

* * *

_Loki, nineteen, ten days later_

The bottle is empty.  
He buys a new one.


End file.
